As part of ongoing education reforms, a new curriculum set to be implemented in 2018 will address the lack of career counselling in high schools across Cambodia, a Ministry of Education official told attendees of an education forum yesterday.

The Kingdom has long endured a gap between the skills students have when they graduate from university and those needed to meet the labour market’s demands, and education officials said yesterday that counselling young students on their interests – as well as what’s available – would help to close that gap.

In 2018, a new curriculum aimed at responding to those needs will be implemented, said Khoun Vichheka, deputy director-general of education at the Ministry of Education. “In high school, we will talk to students about the areas they would like to go into,” she said.

As moderator and American University of Phnom Penh founder Chea Vandeth noted yesterday, the country has never had school counselling.

As a result, many high-school students have no idea what they want to do after they graduate, said Stephen Paterson, a senior adviser at the National University of Management.